


Checkmate

by Laplace (PersonalityTest)



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, muh eternal solitude ahaha, super self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:05:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6438385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersonalityTest/pseuds/Laplace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his dream, he is sitting in front of a chessboard. The chair across from him is empty, but he instinctively knows who should be sitting there. A little Arjuna-centric, AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Checkmate

In his dream, he is sitting in front of a chessboard. The chair across from him is empty, but he instinctively knows who should be sitting there.

The floor is tiled black and white like a chessboard. It makes his head hurt. The walls are white, forms a hexagon-shaped room with no door. Windows show a murky, formless gray. There is no sound, even when he gingerly picks up a knight piece and taps it on the board.

His pieces are white. The missing opponent’s are black. His are marble, heavy, well-crafted. The black ones are far lighter – a different material – the color shiny like it has been painted on. It is well-made, but not refined to the finest detail like his pieces. He doesn’t want to think about whatever that might imply, so he drops the black piece and leans back into the chair.

He waits.

For the opponent to arrive.

For the beginning of the match.

For a conclusion.

For anything.

* * *

Once again, he finds himself in an impossible dream. And yet, he has a feeling he has seen all of this before. The white, hexagonal room, the tiled floor, the murky gray outside that he has realized is like white noise. His steps do not echo, the chessboard is set out neatly but there is no hand to move the black pieces, even when he sets his pawn two spaces forward. Even when he tips the black king over in a flash of irritation.

The king falls soundlessly. The pawn stays where it is until the end of time.

This is a game that will never end.

* * *

If sleep will bring him to this dream of eternal stalemate, then he would rather not sleep at all.

Somehow, he remembers a time when he did not need sleep. It is strange how that time feels so much more like a dream. In this room where there is no sound, no sign of life except his own, he hears the thrumming of his pulse, feel his heart frantically breathing, and wonder. Which one is the dream, which is real. Is this life, or is this death.

Death – somehow, he remembers death –

But white noise fuzzes annoyingly, soundlessly, assaults his brain with black, white, murky gray. He can’t remember. Each time he tries, the noise flares up as a warning, and eventually he gives up. For now.

* * *

He’s tried to knock the chessboard over. No dice. Tried to fling it to the window, and not even a sound from pieces clattering to the ground reaches his ears. The window doesn’t budge, naturally. He kicked a white chess piece in frustration – it hit the wall without a sound, bounced back against his leg. He feels something hard knock against his leg, but that is it; no coldness from the marble, or the pain of having been hit. He might as well have tapped a finger on his leg for all the sensation it gave him. 

It is as if the concept of pain ‘does not exist’. He can pinch his own cheek and feel himself doing so, feel the skin under his fingers, but it is like he’s doing it to another person’s body. There is no sensation or pain. It’s just…there. An action with no consequence.

* * *

There is no door, he finally realizes. That means the opponent will never come.

* * *

He sets the chessboard on a whim. Knocks the black king down on an impulse. He revels for a second, at the sight of the king fallen behind his impenetrable fortress, but it is a hollow victory.

He does it again. And again. And for each time there is a sense of elation, but the hollowness after makes him uncomfortable. So he sets the black king back up, and this time his finger moves to the other side of the board.

The white king falls, soundlessly as always. He waits for something – elation, frustration, some kind of emotion that sends his heart racing and reminds him that he is still alive; though, a life like this, he wonders if he is simply existing without meaning instead.

There is nothing.

No opponent. No one. No purpose. No emotions. He feels absolutely nothing; his brain registers the fact, the king has fallen, and moves on. He wonders if his feelings are dead, if he is as lifeless as the rest of this room.

There is no one but him here.

There is nothing but him here.

* * *

He has no memory. After all, there is nothing but him here. Sound does not reach. Pain is not allowed. Memory, too, is forbidden. And death is never an option.

This is what solitude feels like. This is what _eternal_ solitude feels like. There is no hatred, because there are no thoughts. There is no one to despise or envy, and so his mouth says no words. There is no hidden darkness, because white light will shine here for eternity.

Eternal solitude. Somehow, it feels familiar. It feels like something he has coveted once before, though now he would pay any price, put his life on the line to wish it away. Because eternity means stagnation. There is no moving forward nor stepping back. A life without progression or regression cannot be called life, just a state of existence.

Somehow, instinctively, he knows this is a perfect world. And precisely because it is perfect that it is so empty. Because it is perfect, he is here right now. A perfect existence belongs in a perfect world, where he can play a neverending game of chess he can always win because the opponent will not make it in time, because the concept of loss is not allowed.

But he doesn’t want it.

I don’t want it. I don’t know why, but I don’t want it. -Are you sure? This is a privilege for the winner, a world of eternal solitude created solely for the Blessed Hero.- This is not what I wanted. Take it back. -There is no taking back a wish already made. If you didn’t want it in the first place, you shouldn’t have wished for it.-

He knocks the chessboard to the ground, watches the pieces roll on the floor, his fists clenched and shaking as if a natural reaction, even though he no longer knows what emotions this action represents.

I don’t want it.

-Why should you care what you want now? This world is already perfect. There is nothing you would ever want anymore. This is the end of the life you wished for.-

Somehow, his – its – complacent voice, whatever it is, gets on his nerves. It reminds him of someone who is too kind; so kind that he can accept the existence of a failure of a hero. Someone he wants to defile even with his life at stake. Shut up. Shut up, he says, even though there is no sound as always. I already knew this was something I brought on myself. You’re always like that, always being condescending to me. You’re too pure, you never have any faults, you are as perfect as this disgusting world and you piss me off. You’re…

From the other side of the table, a hand clasps his trembling, clenched fist. The touch is warm, almost unbearably hot to his numbed senses.

He looks up, and standing there is a person as pale and thin as a ghost, his skin almost transparent under the white light. He seems sharp, rigid, but his eyes betray no emotions. And he’s…colorful. The man is dressed in colors whose names he has to struggle to remember, and somehow it pisses him off. Somehow, he is capable of feeling anger even in such a state.

Sound assaults his ears. The flutter of his own clothes, of the bright fluffy cape, the golden armor clanking almost too loudly. The man sits down on the opposite chair, still grasping onto his hands and looking straight into his eyes, and he realizes. Finally, the opponent he has been waiting for. Finally, the conclusion to this eternal stalemate. But before the final match can begin, there is one thing he has to know no matter what.

“Who…are you?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is, ahaha...


End file.
